“The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of twenty-nine newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today,” Jack Purcher reports for Patently Apple.

“One of the key patents published today covers a major patent win for Apple TV, the set-top-box,” Purcher reports. “Apple’s patent clearly shows that Apple TV was and/or is going to work with cable TV and provide PVR like features. Whether Apple TV will ever make the leap to being a fully advanced iOS based Smart TV is unknown at this time…”

Purcher reports, “Although there are some that doubt that Apple will ever actually sell an HDTV version of Apple TV, our Apple TV related archives continue to show that Apple is working on LCD technology for TV’s as well as a host of other advanced technologies including 3D.”

Much more, including Apple’s patent application illustrations and diagrams, in the full article here.

First an advanced Apple TV box that will rid us of the wretched cable box experience and offer many more services and apps. THEN later a full fledged RD monitor (maybe with no glasses 3D) with all that Apple TV stuff built in and upgradeable via software updates. Just my prediction.

The key to the kingdom is the CableCard which would liberate us from the damnable set top boxes supplied by the cable cartel. The Cable Cartel hates them and the current issue incorporates Windows Media components which is one reason ElGato and cannot offer a direct cable DVR for encrypted content on the Mac.

If Apple could get the CableCard standard revised to support FairPlay or license Micro$oft’s DRM they could make an Apple TV set top box or plug in CableCard to rule them all.

I’m not sure what the problem is now. My TiVo has two cable cards. I can record 4 shows at once, while watching another. I can download and upload shows to and from my Mac and sync downloaded shows to my iOS devices.

My prediction is coming true (or I hope it is)! I think the major new “killer” feature of the complete Apple TV, when it is eventually released, will be for it to take the place of the horrendous user interface that current cable boxes use to access content from cable TV providers.

If you think about it, this is almost the SAME approach used for iPhone. When iPhone was introduced, Apple did not seek to replace the services provided by wireless carriers. Instead, iPhone provided a far superior user interface for accessing existing wireless services. Then, over time, Apple released services that were unique to the iPhone, such as the App Store, Siri, iCloud…

The Apple-provided services of the current mini-box Apple TV will also be available on the complete Apple TV. That will be the path for Apple providing services that are unique to the Apple TV. But the mini-box Apple TV will not have the cable TV content interface of the complete Apple TV.

So “mredofcourse” says Apple just needs to license MS DRM then Apple could use cable card, hmmm. Didn’t Apple just license MS for iOS IP. Do you think Apple got the MS DRM in trade ? That is trading to the other guys strength ! So what happens to the googTV ? Answer, nobody cares.